Conventional elevator cabins are only designed and used to transport passengers vertically up and down in one building. This results in constraints and inefficiencies when passengers in elevator cabins desire, or are required, to travel horizontally as well as vertically. For example, airplane passengers moving vertically in an elevator cabin to or from a parking garage or to or from a passenger arrival floor in one airport terminal building, may desire to move horizontally to a different floor in another distant airport terminal building. Presently, such passengers spend considerable time and effort boarding and leaving elevator cabins with their luggage, as well as walking or obtaining horizontal transportation, such as moving walkways, transit pods, inter-terminal trains/monorails, taxis, or shuttle buses, to go from a desired floor in one airline terminal building to a different desired floor in another terminal building. It would be more efficient and enjoyable if passengers and their luggage could remain in the same vehicle for the entire journey.
In addition, elevator systems capable of operating multiple elevator cabins in the same elevator shaft can be rendered largely inoperable by mechanical or electrical failures of a single cabin. If one cabin malfunctions or develops limited operational capability it could slow down or halt movement of the other elevator cabins in the same elevator shaft. Similarly, an elevator cabin may need to be remodeled, refurbished, or repaired over an extended period of time, or many packages in a cabin may need to be loaded or unloaded slowly and carefully from an elevator cabin into a distant room on a certain floor of a tall building.
Accordingly, there is a need to solve all of the aforementioned problems and limitations, by: 1) making it possible for elevator cabins to easily transfer back and forth between vertical and horizontal motion, and 2) by providing a method to remove an elevator cabin from an elevator frame quickly and efficiently. There is also a need for other uses or applications for elevator cabins that can easily transfer back and forth between vertical and horizontal motion.